A five-year plan to make RTÉ 'stand on its own two feet' will see outsourcing and privatisation of programmes, the National Union of Journalists has said.
The national broadcaster has set out plans to move the production of Fair City and The Late Late Show away from its Montrose base in Dublin as part of the changes.
The plan will see increased investment towards the RTÉ Player and the development of an audio streaming app.
RTÉ also aims to cut 400 jobs over the next five years as part of a voluntary redundancy programme with the first phase set to begin 'imminently'.
It's part of plans to secure a €20 million bailout from the Government.
RTÉ National Union of Journalists (NUJ) Chair Chair Trevor Keegan told Newstalk Breakfast moving production off-site is effectively privatisation.
"It's staff that are suffering the brunt of problems that they did not cause," he said.
"We have serious reservations about the plans and some of the vague language around those plans.
"Moving off-site in our eyes that's out-sourcing and, to some degree, privatisation of some programmes."
RTÉ problems 'caused by management'
Mr Keegan said there needs to be changes at the top as well.
"We agree that things have had to change but these are problems caused by management," he said.
"It seems that Government as well is further accentuating this problem because they are the ones who have hamstrung us in terms of funding for so long.
"Now it seems to be that, 'Yes we will give you possibly a new funding model but we're not too sure what that might be'.
"And secondly 'We'll give you a tranche of cash but you have to be the best boys in class and behave and do as we call by pulling the purse strings'".
Mr Keegan said redundancies will see staff "who now have proper rights" being "forced into a gig economy".
"On the ground there is a lot of people who are possibly towards the end of their careers who see that they could end up with a lump sum," he said.
"Where will they go when they leave? Into independent production companies to make more money off RTÉ.
"It is a bit of a double-edged sword".
'Blatant unfairness'
Independent Broadcasters of Ireland (IBI) Chief Executive Michael Kelly told the show the requests from RTÉ are 'a moving target'.
"The survival of broadcasting in Ireland is not just about RTÉ and our concern has been that this issue is being dealt with in isolation," he said.
"There's been blatant unfairness in the sense that RTÉ has been receiving huge sums of money from the taxpayer.
"The RTÉ asks unfortunately are a bit of a moving target - I saw at the weekend they were reportedly looking for €250m.
"We've been a lot more conservative in our number crunching and what I've said is if there was a fund of €180m ... we believe that our sector, for about 5% of that, could actually continue to provide the service we're doing for at least the next year," he added.
RTÉ Director-General Kevin Bakhurst told Newstalk yesterday that the broadcaster must “demonstrate really robust financial management transparency”.
“We need to show that we are looking after the hard-earned money that people spend on RTÉ and spend it in a way that provides value for money for audiences,” he said.
“At the end of this five-year plan, we've done the numbers, and RTÉ will be a sustainable organisation financially.
“It will be able to stand on its own two feet and not come back looking for continual extra funding from Government.”
RTÉ was thrust into scandal last summer when it emerged it had been paying Tubridy significantly more than it had declared to the public or the Oireachtas.
